My Music Staff Reviews

Every music teacher starting out should use this. It just does everything correct and helps streamline lots of things for you!

Probably better organisation of the lesson resources and repertoire where possible

Where to start?
I think the Number 1 reason I love MMS is because of its features. They have truly thought of everything a teacher would need to track schedule and communicate with their students. Anything I personally wanted to try or change in regards to my lessons that I teach was somehow already available for me to utilize. Its as if music teachers themselves designed it.

Next is the ease of use. I have never experienced an online tool so simple and so intuitive. I learned the entire sites basic functions in a matter of days and within a week I was a pro using the advanced settings. Literally anytime I couldn't figure how something worked or anytime I had to troubleshoot any minor issue, I could resolve it within a matter of minutes by simply searching other areas of the site. Since the entire platform so seamlessly integrates one section to another, I.e contact information, billing, calendar events, etc... there is typically more than one way to solve any issue quickly. and if for some reason you cannot solve the issue on your own, MMS has an extensive FAQ list to guide you and incredibly responsive customer service team.

I could go on as well about the cheap cost, personal customization options, and a plethora of other things but my main point is that if you own a music business, schedule reoccurring lessons on even a monthly basis you need to use this site period.

Nothing. Truly. I even expected a small learning curve and even that didn't happen as I was able to use this product efficiently from day one.

I have been using MMS since 2020 when my whole studio went online. Their customer support is fantastic and their team is always available to talk over the phone. Emails are responded to quickly and they always have a solution for my issues.My favorite feature is the auto-invoicing and auto-payment. The website has saved me countless hours of invoice logging, tracking down payments, and scheduling since I can automate everything.I schedule all my lessons through MMS and It's nice that my students can launch their Zoom lesson right from the portal.

I really want to make MMS my ultimate hub for my students to access all their materials and video lessons, as well as send me videos and track their practice. However, I think this is where MMS is really lacking. The last couple of updates have been great but the system still feels like it is stuck in the early 2000's. I'm fairly techy so I haven't had a problem figuring out how to navigate MMS, but students and parents who are not techy at all really struggle, so these features end up being neglected by them. I really struggle to get any of my studio members to use the practice log and send me videos of their practice because it's just not intuitive or easy to access. The Online Resources is an improvement, but even then the filing system is really clunky. I would love to especially see an update of how files are delivered to students. Right now you can email students to notify them that a video or file has been added to their Online Resources. However, when they click the file link in their email they are taken to their home page and not directly to the file I have shared with them.

The schedule is easy to set up and manage. Tracking attendance and sending lesson notes is straightforward and easy. Communicating with families is also easy. Invoicing is straightforward, but doesn't allow me to set up a percentage per student for the ach fees I have to charge for those students whose lessons are paid for under a state education program.

Bank fees for those students who pay online are easy. Other fees, especially those that are percentages of the invoice are not accommodated, subsequently, I literally have to manual create invoices for 85% of my students every month.

MMS is easy to use and easy to integrate into our business protocols. It helps tremendously in keeping us organized and limits the need for tons of paperwork and binders.

Missing Features:- Capability to take swiped card transaction- An easier way to track the difference between make-up lessons that were given due to teacher absence versus student absence in the student profile. Currently all issued make-up credits are grouped together in each student's profile, but since we have our studio policies set to where the students aren't penalized for teacher absences and they have a set limit of make-up credits they can receive for student absences per year it is very hard for us to track.

The best part of the system, and by far the most used for us is the scheduling. Not only does in make keeping track of our lessons very simple and straightforward, we can very quickly make changes, and even provide our teachers with access so they can stay on top of their schedules. In addition, being able to synchronize the MMS calendars to Google Calendar or Apple Calendars means that I can see an updated schedule on my phone at any moment. I also love their automated payment system which has removed the need to chase down students/parents for tuition payments; everything goes through automatically at the end of the month and we can rely on a consistent stream of income to cover expense and make sure everyone is paid on time.

The only thing I don't like about MMS is the recent GUI change. I'd been using the earlier system for many years and have become quite comfortable with where everything was located. The GUI updated moved some features around which has been somewhat annoying - however I'm gradually getting used to the new layouts.

Easy and intuitive inner face. Very easy to train schools' managers and staff. Teachers love My Music Staff. Especially transparency of payroll.

Student setup has too many steps and too much going back and forth between steps.

The calendar is my favourite feature, but it's more than that. It's how all the additional features work together with the calendar for efficiency and organization. Without My Music Staff, I would not be able to keep up with the number of students my school now has.

The only thing that comes to mind is how make-up lessons are recorded under teacher payroll when a substitute teacher is involved. The original teacher is given the income from a cancelled lesson instead of the substitute, but is corrected only if the substitute teacher gives a make-up lesson. The substitute should be the one being compensated regardless.

My very favorite part of my music staff is invoicing! And I love her students can manage their lesson cancellations in the calendar. My music staff has a small price to pay, but ultimately helps me manage my earnings and probably saves me money in the long run because it is much easier to keep track of cancellations and make up lessons. I also really like how I have opportunity to have a website. Another big favorite aspect of the program of mine is that students can register themselves into Recitals.

The concept of make up classes is sometimes hard to get across to students, but the functionality is fine! The phone app is a little hard to use, especially when trying to edit titles of news and blog posts. Sometimes it freezes. But this is a very minor part of my use of my music staff.

All of the needs of my studio are in one place and instead of paper everywhere, everything is at my fingertips on my laptop, ipad or phone. I can take all of my info wherever I go. Students, parents and myself can access and communicate through the app and it is all I need.

It has taken me a little bit to navigate the program but the videos, help site and staff have been great to help me and answer any questions that I have.

Love the calendar organization features, being able to see all my students info and arrange my time appropriately. It also comes with a website to build that I utilize. Also helps me track my invoices and payments in a timely manner.

Downside is no app available, but I hear it's in the works

I love the ease of organizing and tracking my students. I easily set up recurring time slots and set permanent weekly times for each student. I can also send mass messages and emails about recitals and news. It automatically sends invoices each month and I can customize my fees for each one if I'd like to give discounts, for example.

I wish it had an app, though the developers have been constantly updating and improving it for as long as I've used it (over two years).

I love that My Music Staff integrates my Studio Calendar, my billing, and allows me to track my income and business expenses. Having all of that in one location saves me so much time when doing my taxes each year!My students find it very easy to work with when they need to swap out their lesson time occasionally.

It took me a while to understand some of the details of the invoicing process. There are still times when the charges are not what I expected them to be.

I love the ease of scheduling/invoicing, those are the two features I use the most. Both are absolutely critical to the way my studio functions, and it allows both me and my students/parents to be on the same page at all times (which is super important to me!). Additionally, their customer support is UNMATCHED. The few times I have had to email when I ran into issues, I received a near immediate response and the issues were resolved in record time.

Sometimes it isn’t the most intuitive program, but they offer superior customer support and zoom tutorials in order to help navigate this.

Invoicing, tracking attendance, and the calendar are among my favorite MMS features. It was easy to input all of my students into the system, and I love how the calendar helps keep me on track!

I do not like how it organizes make up credits issued, used, and available on the student info page… this is so confusing! I would appreciate if it simply told me the amount of make up credits I owe, and the amount I have on my schedule.

Automatic invoice and text messaging is my favorite.

To be honest, it’s a little pricey monthly. I wish we could subscribe to the program per year with a better price.